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Russia has just dropped another bombshell, announcing not only the de-coupling of its trade from the dollar, but also that its hydrocarbon trade will in the future be carried out in rubles and local currencies of its trading partners – no longer in dollars – see Voice of Russia

Russia’s trade in hydrocarbons amounts to about a trillion dollars per year. Other countries, especially the BRICS and BRCIS-associates (BRICSA) may soon follow suit and join forces with Russia, abandoning the ‘petro-dollar’ as trading unit for oil and gas. This could amount to tens of trillions in loss for demand of petro-dollars per year (US GDP about 17 trillion dollars – December 2013) – leaving an important dent in the US economy would be an understatement.

Added to this is the declaration today by Russia’s Press TV – China will re-open the old Silk Road as a new trading route linking Germany, Russia and China, allowing to connect and develop new markets along the road, especially in Central Asia, where this new project will bring economic and political stability, and in Western China provinces,where “New Areas” of development will be created. The first one will be the Lanzhou New Area in China’s Northwestern Gansu Province, one of China’s poorest regions.

“During his visit to Duisburg, Chinese President Xi Jinping made a master stroke of economic diplomacy that runs directly counter to the Washington neo-conservative faction’s effort to bring a new confrontation between NATO and Russia.” (press TV, April 6, 2014)

“Using the role of Duisburg as the world’s largest inland harbor, an historic transportation hub of Europe and of Germany’s Ruhr steel industry center, he proposed that Germany and China cooperate on building a new “economic Silk Road” linking China and Europe. The implications for economic growth across Eurasia are staggering.”

Curiously, western media have so far been oblivious to both events. It seems like a desire to extending the falsehood of our western illusion and arrogance – as long as the silence will bear.

Germany, the economic driver of Europe – the world’s fourth largest economy (US$ 3.6 trillion GDP) – on the western end of the new trading axis, will be like a giant magnet, attracting other European trading partners of Germany’s to the New Silk Road. What looks like a future gain for Russia and China, also bringing about security and stability, would be a lethal loss for Washington.

In normal times, an arithmetic mistake in an economics paper would be a complete nonevent as far as the wider world was concerned. But in April 2013, the discovery of such a mistake—actually, a coding error in a spreadsheet, coupled with several other flaws in the analysis—not only became the talk of the economics profession, but made headlines. Looking back, we might even conclude that it changed the course of policy.

Why? Because the paper in question, “Growth in a Time of Debt,” by the Harvard economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, had acquired touchstone status in the debate over economic policy. Ever since the paper was first circulated, austerians—advocates of fiscal austerity, of immediate sharp cuts in government spending—had cited its alleged findings to defend their position and attack their critics. Again and again, suggestions that, as John Maynard Keynes once argued, “the boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity”—that cuts should wait until economies were stronger—were met with declarations that Reinhart and Rogoff had shown that waiting would be disastrous, that economies fall off a cliff once government debt exceeds 90 percent of GDP.

Indeed, Reinhart-Rogoff may have had more immediate influence on public debate than any previous paper in the history of economics. The 90 percent claim was cited as the decisive argument for austerity by figures ranging from Paul Ryan, the former vice-presidential candidate who chairs the House budget committee, to Olli Rehn, the top economic official at the European Commission, to the editorial board of The Washington Post. So the revelation that the supposed 90 percent threshold was an artifact of programming mistakes, data omissions, and peculiar statistical techniques suddenly made a remarkable number of prominent people look foolish.

The real mystery, however, was why Reinhart-Rogoff was ever taken seriously, let alone canonized, in the first place. Right from the beginning, critics raised strong concerns about the paper’s methodology and conclusions, concerns that should have been enough to give everyone pause. Moreover, Reinhart-Rogoff was actually the second example of a paper seized on as decisive evidence in favor of austerity economics, only to fall apart on careful scrutiny. Much the same thing happened, albeit less spectacularly, after austerians became infatuated with a paper by Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna purporting to show that slashing government spending would have little adverse impact on economic growth and might even be expansionary. Surely that experience should have inspired some caution.

So why wasn’t there more caution? The answer, as documented by some of the books reviewed here and unintentionally illustrated by others, lies in both politics and psychology: the case for austerity was and is one that many powerful people want to believe, leading them to seize on anything that looks like a justification. I’ll talk about that will to believe later in this article. First, however, it’s useful to trace the recent history of austerity both as a doctrine and as a policy experiment.

Does Obama realize that he is leading the US and its puppet states to war with Russia and China, or is Obama being manipulated into this disaster by his neoconservative speech writers and government officials? World War 1 (and World War 2) was the result of the ambitions and mistakes of a very small number of people. Only one head of state was actually involved–the President of France.

In The Genesis of the World War, Harry Elmer Barnes shows that World War 1 was the product of 4 or 5 people. Three stand out: Raymond Poincare, President of France, Sergei Sazonov, Russian Foreign Minister, and Alexander Izvolski, Russian Ambassador to France. Poincare` wanted Alsace-Lorraine from Germany, and the Russians wanted Istanbul and the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. They realized that their ambitions required a general European war and worked to produce the desired war.

A Franco-Russian Alliance was formed. This alliance became the vehicle for orchestrating the war. The British government, thanks to the incompetence, stupidity, or whatever of its Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, was pulled into the Franco-Russian Alliance. The war was started by Russia’s mobilization. The German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, was blamed for the war despite the fact that he did everything possible to avoid it.

This is an impressive, comprehensive analysis of the February 2014 Ukraine coup from the perspective of a senior Russian academic. It details the interests and affiliations of the main Ukrainian domestic players – oligarchical clans many of whose leaders have dual nationality – with some shocking and little known detail. It exposes the glaring hypocrisies and double standards of the western sponsors of the coup and their Russian/Ukrainian ‘5th Column traitors’. It sees the coup and Russia’s successful incorporation of Crimea as major game-changing events in the on-going, US-lead post-WWII machinations of the West to subdue Russia to its own agenda and outlines how Russia should now respond.

All-in-all a must-read for westerners needing to understand what is really happening in both the Ukraine and the wider Anglo-US-NATO globalisation drive which it brings into sharp focus:

Introduction

Firstly, let me say that sometimes it’s pleasant to be wrong. Well, I got it wrong. At the beginning of February my colleague, Elena Ponomarëva, and I discussed the question, could we take Crimea? I was a pessimist and said, 10% chance that we’ll take Crimea. We won’t get it because the West will react aggressively, and our authorities lack the courage. She said, on the contrary 90% chance that we take Crimea, and 10% chance that it doesn’t happen. She was right. I was wrong.

Without doubt, the re-unification with Crimea is a very important landmark. In a recent TV interview I said that this is genuinely the end of the disgraceful era which began in Malta on the 2-3rd Dec 1989, when Gorbachev surrendered absolutely everything to Bush, even what wasn’t asked for.

After that everything possible was given up. Rays of hope began to appear later, during the Putin administration. There was the war of 08.08.08. But later we failed to support Libya. Although we did put the foot down at Syria. But this is all far away from Russian lands. But Ukraine and Crimea – this is a completely new situation. We started to re-take our territory, little by little. Started doing as the Muscovite princes did in the 14th, 15th century, what the first Romanovs did, and the Stalin system in the 1930s, all of which was: leaving the historical zone of defeat.

But leaving the historical zone of defeat means not only external matters, we are now tearing up the global status quo, which took shape in 1991-94. Meaning: disintegration of the Soviet Union, the uranium deal, the shooting at the Moscow White House, the Budapest Memorandum.

Washington has no intention of allowing the crisis in Ukraine to be resolved. Having failed to seize the country and evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base, Washington sees new opportunities in the crisis.

One is to restart the Cold War by forcing the Russian government to occupy the Russian-speaking areas of present day Ukraine where protesters are objecting to the stooge anti-Russian government installed in Kiev by the American coup. These areas of Ukraine are former constituent parts of Russia herself. They were attached to Ukraine by Soviet leaders in the 20th century when both Ukraine and Russia were part of the same country, the USSR.

Essentially, the protesters have established independent governments in the cities. The police and military units sent to suppress the protesters, called “terrorists” in the American fashion, for the most part have until now defected to the protesters.

With Obama’s incompetent White House and State Department having botched Washington’s takeover of Ukraine, Washington has been at work shifting the blame to Russia. According to Washington and its presstitute media, the protests are orchestrated by the Russian government and have no sincere basis. If Russia sends in military units to protect the Russian citizens in the former Russian territories, the act will be used by Washington to confirm Washington’s propaganda of a Russian invasion (as in the case of Georgia), and Russia will be further demonized.

The Russian government is in a predicament. Moscow does not want financial responsibility for these territories but cannot stand aside and permit Russians to be put down by force. The Russian government has attempted to keep Ukraine intact, relying on the forthcoming elections in Ukraine to bring to office more realistic leaders than the stooges installed by Washington.

In a long interview with Il Foglio April 19, Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini said that if we don’t want a nuclear war, negotiations with Russia on Ukraine are the only solution. Italy backs Germany’s approach to the Ukrainian crisis, and calls for a solution that involves “the interest of all” parties involved.
–Mogherini said that Rome and Berlin “have a perfect understanding, an identity of views, a common reading of the crisis.” This has had an important effect: to soften the hardline approach pushed by some countries, such as France and Poland. “A military option is always possible, but only as last resort, and it is not guaranteed that it will solve the problems; sometimes it makes them worse… for this reason we and Germany, in Ukraine, are seeking to avoid using the word ‘NATO’ in order to be frightening. It would be counterproductive.”
–Russia must not be fought, but convinced “to dialogue, to participate… What is the solution, a nuclear war? Nobody wants it, therefore let’s seek a way through negotiations.” Sanctions, “if used as the only instrument,” are a step backward.
–On energy supplies, Mogherini says that “Russia made it clear that it will not cut its supplies because it is not worthwhile economically… And Europe will do everything to avoid that the next sanctions should produce a backlash on energy supplies, because the first country to suffer from this would be the country we want to help, namely Ukraine.”

The Great Game Round-Up brings you the latest newsworthy developments regarding Central Asia and the Caucasus region. We document the struggle for influence, power, hegemony and profits between a U.S.-dominated NATO, its GCC proxies, Russia, China and other regional players.

While tensions are mounting in eastern Ukraine after U.S. Vice President Joe Biden had instructed Washington’s puppet regime in Kiev to ignore the Geneva agreement and escalate the situation, the European Union sent two of its most notorious warmongers to another front in the new Cold War against Russia. The Foreign Ministers of Germany and France, Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Laurent Fabius, visited Georgia and affirmed plans to speed up the signing of the now infamous EU Association Agreement with Russia’s southern neighbor:

The Ukraine crisis is not an accident of history, it is the result of an intention: that of forcing Ukraine to choose sides between Europe and Russia. The European External Action Service of the European Commission led by Ms. Ashton and Mr. O’Sullivan refused the tripartite negotiation proposed by Russia in November 2013 between the economic partnerships under development among Ukraine and Russia on the one hand, and Ukraine and the EU on the other hand [1]. Once launched, the process was inevitable: forced to choose, Ukraine lost its freedom and, because of its dual nature, headed towards the major crisis that we know today. From the door it was between Europe and Russia, Ukraine transformed into a wall.

If Ukraine’s fate is to be pitied, the real target of the maneuver is Europe, in fact its independence and freedom to be precise. Indeed, the sharp deterioration of the Euro-Russian relationship following the crisis throws Europe into the arms of America-NATO, so keen to receive it. Therefore Europe loses its liberty because of the imbalance induced on its external relations [2].

Who should know better than us, LEAP and the Euro-BRICS network, that Europe is the key to the emergence of a multipolar world that frightens so much some people in Europe and the United States. The Euro-BRICS process launched in 2009 by LEAP is in fact based on the idea that when faced with the rising power of emerging countries and, particularly, BRICS, there is the risk that a Western Bloc (United States + Europe) be created in the hope of retaining control a little longer, which would drag the world into a polarization which best way out would be the creation of a new Cold War (knowing that this time the West would end up confined) and the worst way out, the outbreak of an open and global war.

As the US, EU and Britain huff and puff in barrel loads of clichés: “red lines” are “crossed”, “sovereignty and territorial integrity” has been “violated”, they stand “shoulder to shoulder” with their Neo-Nazi counterparts in the interim puppet government.

They are “resolute” against “Russian aggression”, and will not “stand idly by”, sanity seems in short supply.

US Secretary of State, John Kerry representing a country which makes Genghis Khan look like a wimp when it comes to illegal invasions, still retains the prize for jaw dropper of the decade: “You just don’t, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext”, he pontificated on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

On the thirteenth anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq and the total destruction of it’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity”, by America and Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron has scuttled off to Brussels for a meeting of European Union Ministers to agree on a “robust response” to Russia – which has fired not a shot, invaded no one and threatened nothing except to respond that if sanctions were imposed on Russia they might consider a trading response. Fair enough, surely?

Barack Obama speaks well. In fact, President Obama does not write his own texts but spends his days reading speeches written on prompters for him. Meanwhile, others govern in his place.

The Anglo-Saxon Empire is based on a century of propaganda. It managed to convince us that the United States is “the land of the free” and that it engaged in wars to defend its ideals. But the current crisis over Ukraine has changed the rules of the game. Now Washington and its allies are not the only speakers. Their lies are openly challenged by the government and media of another major state, Russia. In the era of satellites and the Internet, Anglo-Saxon propaganda no longer works.

Rulers have always tried to convince their subjects of the correctness of their actions, because crowds never follow men they know to be bad. The twentieth century has seen new ways of spreading ideas unburdened by the truth. Westerners trace modern propaganda to Nazi minister Joseph Goebbels. It is a way to forget that the art of distorting the perception of things was previously developed by Anglo-Saxons.

In 1916, the United Kingdom created Wellington House in London, followed by Crewe House. Simultaneously, the United States created the Committee on Public Information (CPI). Considering the First World War was between masses and no longer between armies, these organizations tried to intoxicate their own people as well as those of their allies and those of their enemies with propaganda.